LitClub Nepal brings moms together to empower each other

It was a storytelling session like no other! A room full of mothers were brought together to tell each other captivating stories about their journey in life with the hope of forming deep connection and transformative change within themselves. This was a beginning of a new journey, the start of a new club, ‘Rukmini Mom’s Club’ initiated by Rukmini Foundation’s Lit Club Nepal.

Before the Rukmini Mom’s Club began, RF team in Nepal did preliminary investigation to explore the needs of the mothers in the community and how to best promote and establish this club. A session was held with the community leaders with the hope of understanding how best to proceed with the objective of starting a Mom’s club. The community leaders expressed their views and stated that sharing stories would be a powerful way for the Mother’s to share their stories, create authentic connection with the rest of the women in the community and for their voices to be heard. The next step was to meet with the mothers of our scholars and the women in the community and see how they felt about joining the Mom’s club. The mothers too were excited and intrigued by this new idea of forming a club entirely dedicated to them.

The first club meeting was a huge success, with 18 mothers in attendance. The session started with a simple Namaste (hello) song that was both energetic and also helped get rid of any nervousness the mothers had. Then the day was followed by multiple activities that fostered bonding and helping the mothers get to know each other. The mothers then received an orientation about the Mom’s club, its purpose, the people involved in creating this club, and how they would benefit from being part of this new idea. They were shown a video presentation that showcased the endless possibilities when women are empowered through health, education, and income generation. Then the mothers participated in an intensive discussion where they were asked to give input on the video just seen and elaborate on what resonated with them, which led them to share their own ideas, point of views and their experiences.

Before the day ended, our team conducted a survey to get feedback from the mothers on how they felt the first session went, along with asking them to voice what they would like to do in the upcoming Mom’s club meetings. Majority of the attendees were highly interested in having a space that allowed them to work on enhancing their skills, developing their personal attributes, getting more opportunity and confidence to speak in public, broadening their knowledge and also developing computer skills to be able to communicate with relatives living aboard.

Our team in Nepal can proudly say that the first Rukmini Mom’s Club session was a tremendous success. They created a platform for mothers of the Pharping community to come together and create an opportunity for them to learn from one another, while also igniting a change within themselves in the hope of creating a better community.

About Bandana Adhikary

If Bandana could choose three words to define herself, she would pick “learner, dreamer, and believer”. Bandana is a go-getter who believes in the power of hard work and hard work alone to obtain results. As a passionate Rotaractor, she loves expanding her worldview through dance, storytelling, poetry, and painting. She currently studies development finance and has mentored Niharika School’s LitClub for the past two years. Her experiences here have inspired her to help children and build platforms for young girls to practice self-expression and fearlessness. Bandana sees herself as a future social transformer through innovative entrepreneurship.